President's Message
Thanks to all of you for giving me the honor of serving as your ETPA President for 2010. This
will be an exciting year, and I hope that all of us will learn more about our profession and enjoy ourselves as members of ETPA.
My vision for 2010 is to provide all of us the opportunity to engage in very useful and interesting professional development training and to increase our membership. To achieve this vision,
I’ve outlined three objectives to pursue:
1. To host a combined ETPA/TAPP professional development conference this fall that provides our members with interesting and useful training—while promoting networking
opportunities. Preliminary planning
already is underway for this exciting
event. We’re going to make every effort
to lower the cost of attending the conference,
in order to make attendance
affordable at a time when governmental budgets are at low ebb.
2. To host a Business Matchmaking
event this summer, which provides
small businesses throughout East Tennessee the opportunity to speak one-on-one with procurement officials from
both governmental entities and large corporations. This event also has the
potential to increase our membership. We’ll extend an invitation to participate
to some non-member governmental organizations and their participation will allow them to see first hand the benefits of being a part of ETPA.
3. To acquire top notch speakers for our general membership meetings who are well qualified to speak to us concerning procurement topics that are of current interest.
To help achieve these goals and objectives, we have an excellent group of people who’ll be working toward these goals. You’ll find a listing of our Board of Directors on page 2 of our February newsletter and the Committee Chairs on page 3—please contact them with your ideas for programs, activities or just to volunteer!
I’m excited about the plans being developed for this year, and I hope that you will all join me at our next general membership meeting on Thursday, May 6, 2010.
Boyce Evans
President, East Tennessee Purchasing Association
